


flesh and bone

by ooka



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 02:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/ooka
Summary: Steve catches sight of the almost liquid metal slowly covering Tony’s body in an armor that he’s never seen before.  It starts from his right side, and it only takes seconds to to engulf him. “Is that,” Bucky says loud enough that Tony catches - sightless eyes of the mask meeting his before sliding to Bucky.“Probably.  But it also depends on how you were going to end that sentence."





	flesh and bone

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly canon up to CA:CW. Assumes Rhodey is magically fixed, Thanos attacking New York, Tony and Peter are close ala Homecoming but doesn't reference anything, references Shuri and T'Challa and some of her lines in Black Panther but doesn't truly spoil the movie. So mild everything and nothing across the board. Oh definitely spoils Thor 3 plot.
> 
> My letter was P for prosthetic.
> 
> Also I have no idea what this turned into. It was a weird trip for me too guys.
> 
> unbeta-ed, as always

The first time Steve sees Tony, since everything - all he can notice is how much of the same he is.  Talking a mile a minute, sunglasses across his eyes, wild gestures.  He’s chatting with the Spider-Man kid, grinning while T’Challa’s younger sister explains how very wrong they are for making assumptions about something.  Bruce is just outside the group, and every once in a while Tony looks back to make sure he’s still there.  Still a part of the conversation.  Still right there.

Steve stays there watching for a while, before Natasha comes up besides him.  

“Is the glove thing new?” she asks.  He pauses before noticing the two black gloves Tony has covering his hands as he sketches something out before Shuri breaks out in helpless laughter.  

Steve replies with, “I hadn’t noticed.”  Natasha snorts, and Steve’s spent enough time with her, hiding from authorities, suspects -  trading stories while waiting to know exactly what that noise means.  “Honestly,” he adds, softly.  

But now that he’s looking, he sees the differences in Tony too.  The way he holds himself a little too tightly, the way he looks a little ragged around the edges (more so than he used to).  The way he doesn’t carry a glass of something amber.  The way Bruce keeps eying him, the way Spider-Man only touches his left side.  Tony looks older than Steve remembers him, worn down to the bone and holding back some pain.

“They’re different,” Steve says finally, carefully making sure not to say _he._

Natasha doesn’t correct him - just leaves a hand on his arm for a moment before walking towards Tony.  

Bruce clocks her immediately, but doesn’t move, just watches her from across the room with the same steadiness he watches Tony interact.  She does something that makes Bruce grin a little ruefully, but it’s the hesitant “Mr. Stark” that gets him to turn.

Steve can see the moment Tony looks past Natasha’s shoulder and makes him out.  He doesn’t look surprised.  He just looks tired.  Like some lines have been chiseled into his face.  Steve yeans for his sketchbook to capture this moment.  Tries to memorize the way Tony looks at him, everything that is different and the same.  This is a moment he doesn’t want forget.

Doesn’t matter that the serum has made it impossible to forget things, Steve takes extra care to think, _keep this, please_.

Instead Natasha puts her left arm out and Tony smirks but doesn’t move.  Instead the Spider kid leans in closer on his right and glares the best he can in a mask.  The surprising thing is Shuri.  Steve remembers her as the self confident, joyful 16 year old, but in at 18, there’s more to her hint of steel as she stands there evaluating the scene.  She watches and waits just past Tony’s shoulder, taller than either of them. Natasha drops her hand.

“Interesting hair color,” he hears Tony say.  “I would say you’re a bit too pale for dyed platinum eyebrows, but I guess you made the choice knowing what it would look like.  Undercover job?  Make over?  Just trying for a fresh start?”

“A little of everything,” Natasha retorts.  “You know how well I don’t like choosing just one thing.”

Tony’s face eases.  “Oh I remember exactly how much you hate choosing a side.”

They both smile at that, and Steve straightens away from the wall where he has been leaning.  Maybe he can -

“Captain!” Thor booms and pulls him into a hug.  Steve laughs, open and honest and relieved at the jubilant greeting.  Over Thor’s shoulder, his eyes meet Tony’s, and the laughter lines in the corner of his eyes, reminds Steve of the old times.  When he would ask outrageous questions and make incorrect assumptions about pop culture that he’s already read about to irk Tony into throwing up his hands and making him watch the movie or a version of the concert, and the rest of the Avengers in the tower would settle in together until it became an assumed thing they did every Thursday and Saturday night.

“How are you?” Steve asks Thor once Tony’s hidden from his view once again.  

Thor responds with, “My father is dead but everything I thought he had done is a lie, my sister Hela overthrew Asgard and tried to kill me multiple times but I killed her, my brother Loki is not dead but is working as a double agent against Thanos.  Also I believe the Hulk and I are friends now.  We, along with Loki and Valkyrie, make up the Revengers and overthrew the Grandmaster.”

Steve blinks.  “Uh...that’s a lot Thor.”

Thor shrugs.  “It has been two years.  What has been up with you Captain?”

Steve laughs a little bit helplessly before he tries to explain exactly where everything has gone sideways or changed.  It’s been a long two years.

The next time he peeks around Thor, Tony is gone.

  
  


“Bruce,” Tony begs.  “Bruce I need your help with this.  I can’t -” He bites back a sob.  “I can’t, I can’t.  I _can’t -_ ”

Bruce moves to touch his right side and Tony flinches away, jarring him enough that he can feel the pain in the back of his teeth.  “It’s okay,” Bruce says.  We’ll figure it out.”

Tony whimpers, curling into himself a little, counting the breaths he takes in between clenched teeth before unfolding and catching Bruce’s worried gaze.  “I’m glad it’s you looking into this,” Tony utters, too tired to be anything but honest.  “I tried and I tried, and I can’t find anything to make this work.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything for a while, and Tony can feel the yards of emotional distance between them stronger now than ever before.  It lingers like they aren’t standing in the same room.  The old hurts are still there, wounds they inflicted accidentally - that Tony inflicted upon them both are still sluggishly bleeding in both their psyche's while they are here, on the lab’s cold floor.  

“Boss?” FRIDAY asks hesitantly.  “Do you want me to get Colonel Rhodes?”

Tony waves the thought away with his left arm, and she stays silent - sullen and probably already reaching out to Rhodey.  Tony would smile if it didn’t feel like that would split him in two.    

“What about the vibranium treatments that Wakanda is providing?” Bruce asks, eventually.  “That’s all I can see anywhere.  The technological advances they are providing.”

Tony grins, and he can see the visual reaction Bruce has to it.  Knows he is using too much teeth, but can’t keep for the way he is baring them.  “Wakandians don’t like Starks.”

“So you haven’t asked,” Bruce sighs.  “Tony.”

“Don’t Bruce,” Tony hard lines.  “I asked once and was turned down. I’m not the desperate girl at the dance.”  

Bruce huffs, and Tony knows what he isn’t saying, _what about this right now?_  And Tony refuses to admit, but he's almost desperate enough to ask again.  

  
  


 

Steve doesn’t see Tony around much.  They are basing out of the Compound in New York, in order to keep off the radar of the UN and Ross, but everyone is on the move - dealing with incursions here and there and trying to fight the good fight.  Tony’s almost always gone.  Never here.  Bruce laughs when Scott asks if Tony has turned himself into a bionic man in order to be able to handle all the work.

“He never slept much,” Rhodey admits, and that’s about all they can get out of him.  Steve doesn’t try because he knows he’s being iced out.  He saw that one coming months ago.  

(He says, _I’m sorry_ once to Rhodes, who watches him so closely, Steve is only a small percentage sure that Rhodes can’t burn him alive with his gaze alone.  A very small percentage.

However Rhodes just parts with a nod and a quick, _thanks_.)

It’s a bit like when he initially went and walked Brooklyn after he woke up.  Some things are the same, but home isn’t home anymore and he knows it down to his bones.  He can either try to get familiar with the landscape or just give up and find somewhere new.

He gave up the last time, and this time he can’t help but want to try and figure it out.  

So he haunts the hallways, wandering around the maze of the building until it’s familiar again.  It’s during one of these walk abouts, he finds the new lab.  There is a hologram of a prosthetic arm, similar to Bucky’s, floating between Shuri and Tony, both poking it and a list of notes being added besides it.  

Steve can’t hear anything through the glass, but he can watch them in the gleaming room.  There isn’t a prototype anywhere, and Tony keeps speaking before looking to Shuri who keeps her head down and drawing another version.  They make quite a pair, the two of them, sitting together, yet not - working together, yet not.

(“Why is there a couch here?” Steve asks one day when he finally gives in and comes down to the Tower’s lab.

Tony doesn’t respond for a while until he finishes soldering the two wires in his hands together.  “You ought to have a nice place to contemplate the universe in here.”

“Sketch,” Steve says, pained, like the million times before.

Tony shoots him a quicksilver grin over his shoulder before he turns back to the gauntlet.  “Whatever makes you feel Captain.”

He stays there standing for a long moment before sitting down and flipping through his sketchbook, past pictures of Tony bent over the suit, studies of his oil covered hands, Tony’s feet against the table as he dictates corrections to an algorithm to JARVIS, and settles on a new page.  Steve catches Tony looking his way again, careful consideration of how Steve has settled in, the way his legs are crossed, and if he’s comfortable before smiling and turning back.

Steve ends up working on that secret smile for the next hour.)

Steve’s hand is on the glass before he even notices it, reaching out into the moment beyond him, and the second his hand brushes it - the glass is suddenly obscured, and he can’t see anything past the frosting.  

He stays there for a while, hand on the glass, hoping against any actual hope that the glass will change again.

It doesn’t.

  
  


He wakes up in the Compound’s medical wing.  Too stiff bed underneath causing new aches and pains.  His vision goes in and out for a while, and he’s not sure how long it is before he can finally make out where he is and who is there.  Rhodey, always faithful, hunched over in the chair, arms on his knees and forehead pressed against his fists.

“Hey pretty,” Tony croakes out.  Rhodey’s head snaps up and he looks exhausted, like at the edge of a four day binge of all nighters - like back at MIT.  He goes to reach out for Rhodey, and that’s when it all snaps back into focus, the sharp pain that overrides everything he can see, hear, feel, even taste.

He comes back to with Rhodey going, “Tony? Tones, can you hear me?  I need you to say something here.  I need you to open your mouth you incessant, over explaining bastard”, desperation dripping from his words.

“I can’t drown it out,” Tony says, grasping at straws in his own mind, pain ridden and gone.  More than gone.  Rhodey is there beside him, he has to remind himself.  “What do you mean Tones?  What are you talking about?”

“It’s eating me alive.” He tells instead.  “It’s worse than the palladium because I can’t fix this.  This is just me.  Broken.”

Rhodey is closer, almost right in his personal space bubble and whispers, “Tony are you high?”

“Yes,” Tony replies.  “But I can still feel it you know.  Even after everything, I can feel it.  Like it’s still there.”

Rhodey’s hand is in his left.  Tony laces their fingers.  “I know Tony.  I know.”

Tony carefully looks to his right and sees the gap there, what is missing, and repeats, “I can still feel it.”

“I know Tony.”

Then the morphine hits again, and Tony goes fuzzy enough around the edges it’s hard to even think about what they are talking about.

  
  


The next portal opens in the middle of New York and it’s suddenly a battlefield, and Steve’s thankful he never takes off his suit for long these days.  He has the weapons Shuri made for him, and looks to his right and catches Bucky’s eye with a grin, adrenaline pumping before he remembers that Tony doesn’t have his bracelets on, or a suitcase, so he’s potentially suitless, and Steve needs to cover him.  

Instead, he catches sight of the almost liquid metal slowly covering Tony’s body in an armor that he’s never seen before, even in Tony’s sketches or designs that he used to pontificate about in the lab.  It starts from his right side, and it only takes seconds to to engulf him. “Is that,” Bucky says loud enough that Tony catches - sightless eyes of the mask meeting his eyes before sliding to Bucky.  

“Probably.  But it also depends on how you were going to end that sentence,” Tony replies, and it sounds more like him, less filtered than before, and Steve had a million questions but Thantos is coming their way, and he doesn’t have time. Not now.  

Later - if there is a later, he’s going to ask.

  
  


Tony’s groggy when he comes to, and his right side doesn’t hurt - at all.  It’s a startling difference.  “You should have come to me,” he hears, and then groans.  

“Hello T’Challa,” he says when he can finally focus on the man beside him’s face.  “I didn’t think a quick temporary truce between men in battle was what would allow me to ask you of a favor or five.”

T’Challa nods to the swath of bandages on his right.  “This is because of that battle, isn’t it?”  Tony shrugs the best he can before wincing.    “Then you should have told me you were compromised before we went into battle together.”

Tony’s rueful when he replies, “I should do a lot of things differently.”

“Yes,” a higher pitched voice says from the foot of his bed. “But thankfully, I like getting to fix broken little white boys.”

“Excuse me?” Tony says as T’Challa chuckles.  “Tony Stark, meet my sister Princess Shuri of Wakanda.”

“Please brother,” Shuri waves carelessly.  “If I was going to have Tony Stark address me by a title, I would go by Chief Innovator of the Wakandan Design Branch.”

T’Challa chuckles, hopelessly fond, and Tony can’t help but like the girl, or her brother, a little more.  “Do I even want to ask what you did, or are you going to tell me?”

“Why tell?” she asks, wicked grin spreading across her face.  “When I can show you?”

Why indeed.

  
  


When Steve comes into the infirmary, Tony’s sitting in an old worn Metallica tshirt and jeans as Shuri pokes and prods him.  On his right side is a gleaming metal arm, not unfamiliar from Bucky’s, and Steve’s mouth goes dry.  If Shuri pokes the arm enough with the instrument in her hand, the top layer melts away and the wires inside are left exposed.  

Tony is completely at ease with the situation, and that’s when Steve realizes he hasn’t seen Tony without his gloves or a long sleeve shirt or jacket since he arrived in New York. 

“You continue to make needless modifications to the prosthetic,” Shuri scolds him, and Tony laughs.  

“Don’t even act like you don’t have 500 versions of this arm on your tablet.  And just because I’m interested in figuring out the intricacies of vibranium, doesn’t mean I’m doing ‘needless’ experiments.”

Steve tightens his grip on his arm to keep him going down memory lane, where Tony would sit in the lab in the tower and skim through designs lazily as Steve watched, just like this.  They were completely comfortable being in each’s other’s spaces, but now - they can’t be in the same room without this heavy tension eating between them and everyone else.

Shuri rolls her eyes, “I already told you everything you needed to know.”

“Why tell when you can show and experiment?” Tony mocks, and Shuri prods something in the wiring of the arm that makes Tony yelp.  They both laugh outrageously, before Shuri pulls backs the instrument and asks how his pain levels are.

“You mean, am I mainlining main meds or morphine to deal with the phantom limb issues I’ve got going?  Or does the fancy new fake arm hurt any more than I am used to?” Tony asks, and Steve knows this tone, the middle ground between serious and a joke, and Tony’s hoping you take the easier route so he doesn’t have to have this conversation.  But he wants you to ask.  Really ask, because it’s time for that conversation and he knows.

Shuri stares him down, before Tony gives finally.  “It still happens, but it’s not painful.  Just surprising.  Or at least not what I was dealing with before, when I…,” he pauses.  “It’s not like before.”

“Good,” she voices.  “Have you been going to meetings?”  And Tony laughs, before she rolls her eyes.  “You at least have a sponsor?”

“Yeah,” Tony replies.  “How are you holding up?”

She shrugs.  “I am approaching a normalcy where I am used to murder attempts on my life and my brother’s increasing annoyance about my protection.  I’m trying to fix all the broken people that keep finding me, and I would still rather be at Disneyland or trying to date.”

“You realize your first date is going to be insane, right?” Tony replies.  “You’ve got a team of superheroes who are quickly adopting you.”

Shuri bites back, “What makes you think I haven’t already gone on my first date?”  She then grins, “And I’m more worried about Okoye than any of you colonizers.”

Tony laughs.  “Just let me know if I need to hide Peter from her.”

Steve stays there a little while longer while they go back and forth, before walking away.

 

 

 

  
It’s three days post-op when he starts mainlining morphine again.  

It’s two days later when he starts hallucinating Steve.  

“Fuck you,” he says across the table where Steve stands there, mask on and judging him.  “If you knew how to open your mouth and say some real goddamn words instead of ‘oh you’re making decisions for us’, we wouldn't be in this goddamn mess.  If you had fucking said something we could have avoided the whole Germany fight.”

He spins around, rather to face the wall than Steve’s smug faceless reaction, “Do you know how much I had to pay for the clean up?  Thank god the Maria Stark foundation gets the bills, but SI still takes the stock hit.  And you remember my company’s CEO and ex-girlfriend who hates the reminder that I still superhero because that’s what broke us up and that still a _little_ raw thank you very much.  She gets to start lecturing me about the whole incident and that’s something I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with any more but apparently I forgot our entire relationship is based on her judging my actions and counterbalancing them correctly.”

He turns back, because Steve should have to hear this, have to face him.  “I could have bought another plane!  But no, I had to fix a goddamn airport because you wouldn’t say any actual words!”

Steve still doesn’t say anything back. Typical.

  


 

Steve’s leaning against the tower wall, watching out into the night when Tony comes to a stop beside him.  It’s startling to realize that he could reach out with his right hand and touch Tony’s left.  They haven’t been this close outside of a fight in nearly two and a half years.  

“Hi,” Steve says into the distant city noise that fills the night.  

Tony turns minutely and stares at him for a long moment before smiling and saying, “Hi Steve.  Been a minute, huh?”

Steve laughs, purely to keep from crawling out from his skin.  “Yeah.  Just a few.”

They both smile at each other before looking at out to the city.  It’s a clear night - a good night.  The world is safe.  They are all together in the same building for the first time in a while and no one is yelling about coffee grounds or Accords or anything.  

“Do you get colder easier because of the arm?” he asks suddenly.  Tony doesn’t look surprised at the question, just amused.  “I mean Bucky runs warmer because of the serum, but I just wondered.”

Tony tugs off the glove on his right hand before leaning over and wrapping his fingers around Steve’s wrist.  It’s warm.

“I wear the gloves to keep people from freaking out, and it keeps the hand warm, but the inside is heated.  Shuri knew what she was doing,” Tony replies as he leans back against the railing, hand still on Steve’s pulse point.

Steve wonders if Tony can tell his heart is racing.

Steve pauses, “When did..” He waves at Tony’s side.  “Happen?”  

“The initial injury or the actual new and improved arm?” Tony quieres, and Steve nods, so Tony adds, “The former was because of the Vienna fight.  Didn’t put enough stabilizers in the watch repulsor.  Fixed that next round, but it was too late.  And the latter happened about a year ago?  Maybe.  Shuri likes to heal people, fix problems.”  Tony grins, quicksilver sincerity, “She decided I was worth a go.”

“Of course you are,” Steve says, looking at the silver fingers around his wrist, and the sheen of the metal.  Almost a year old, and it looked brand new.  

Tony pulls away, and Steve feels the immediate loss.  “Don’t say things you don’t mean Steve.”

“I mean it,” Steve insists, meeting his eyes this time.

Tony levels him a measuring look, like he’s trying to read Steve from the inside out.  Steve tries not to bristle, keeps steady breaths and tries to look as open as he feels.  They are allies, have been for months.  They should be able to move past everything now.

“Okay,” Tony says before pushing off the railing.  “I need to head in.”

Steve nods, words caught in his throat, and watches as Tony walks away.

  


 

Tony rages with, “You didn’t even tell me about my parents, and you may have known my Dad first, but he was a bastard.  My mother didn’t deserve that.  I didn’t deserve to have my inability to handle my alcohol haunt my days because I would probably kill my wife like my father did, driving drunk.  Why do you think I have a fucking chauffeur?  Because I can’t drive?”  He scoffs and drinks a little too heavily for the next hour.

Steve just fucking stands there, helmet off this time, and grins from ear to ear.

Tony takes hit after hit until he can’t see that smirk any more.

  


 

 

They get into an argument in the middle of a strategy session.  It’s loud and angry, and Tony finally throws out a jagged, “At least you’re honest with how much you hate me now.  It’s nice to see that out in the open.”  Bucky has to hold him back from reaching out to Tony.  Rhodey stands in the middle, firm when he utters, “We should take a break.”

Steve finds him after and says, “You know I don’t hate you.”

“Really?” Tony replies as he continues to work on a gauntlet.  

“Really,” Steve returns.  He’s still surprised he was let into the lab, but maybe Tony didn’t want this one argument out between everyone.  Not again.  “I never hated you.  I didn’t get what you saw.”  He shrugs.  “Now?  Now I see what you saw, but I still don’t agree with it.  I don’t think all humans are terrible.”

Tony laughs.  “You think the best of people, and it’s part of my job to expect the worst, so of course we’re never going to agree.  I still am surprised we get along most of the time.”

“Because I respect you,” Steve says.  “I know you don’t think I do, but I always have.”

Tony laughs long and hard this time before turning around.  “Now I know you’re bullshitting with me.”  He’s grinning, and Steve hates it because Tony’s so confident in this truth, that he doesn’t even see how he could be wrong.

“I’m being honest with you,” Steve insists.  “Just ask, and I’ll confirm.”

Tony pauses for a moment, measuring him, recalibrating his image of Steve, before replying, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Steve echoes. They both smile, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like they are on the same page

 

 

 

 

It’s five weeks later when Tony finally says, “Your best friend broke my arm in new and exciting way, and you broke my brain.  I can’t get you out, even on the drugs.”

Steve stands there, silent.  Judging.  Tony smiles, ragged and worn down,  “Just like the real you.”

  
  


They almost don’t make it, and when they get back Steve can’t stand back any more.  He watches Tony across the room during the party, and he knows it makes Tony uncomfortable because Tony carefully avoids looking at him.  Steve can’t help it, keeps looking back to make sure Tony’s still there, because he almost wasn’t, and Steve can’t handle that.

“You okay?” Bucky asks, deep into his latest beer.  

“I’m alive,” Steve retorts.  “So I’m doing better than the other guy.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.  “Stop being an asshole then and do something before someone accuses  you of trying to find a way to off Tony.”

“I’m not being that weird,” Steve huffs.  Bucky hides his grin by taking another sip.  “Am I really being that weird?”

“You’re always that weird,” Bucky replies.  “But you are being extra weird.  So do whatever you need to in order to stop it.”

“I’m really not,” Steve pushes, but Bucky just raises an eyebrow that screams _remember how I met you trying to fight bullies five billion times your size -  you’ve always been a weird asshole_ without verbalizing it.  “Ugh,” Steve groans.  “Just go away.”

Bucky laughs and says, “You’re just lucky I need another beer.”  

He stands up to walk away as Steve yells over his shoulder, “It’s just a shitty IPA that does nothing for you.”  Bucky flicks him off without looking back.

“Judging my alcohol choices, are we Captain?” Tony queries, taking Bucky’s seat beside him on the couch.  

Steve hides his surprise by downing his whiskey.  It burns and he feels a faint fuzziness at the edges of his brain for a few moments before it fades.  “Just the beer Scott smuggled in and has Bucky addicted to.”

Tony looks over his shoulder at the cluster of people at the bar to their right, Natasha watching on in disgust, and probably lecturing them on their choices based on their faces.  “You know I never thought we would ever have another party like this after Ultron.”

Honing back in on Tony, Steve catches the waves of regret that pass over his face before settling.  It’s part of the new Tony, the quick release of negative emotion.  It still never seems to throw Steve off.  He keeps waiting for the second wave to sneak up on them both and bite him

“Not after the Germany battle?” he voices.  Because they had had gatherings, he remembers, but Tony has been curiously separate from the rest.  Showing up from time to time, but never lingering too long.  Maybe they had been drifting for longer than he was even aware.

“Nope,” Tony says, popping the p. He studies Steve for a moment, and Steve feels a hot flush burn up his neck at the attention.  “What’s with all the covert looks tonight Captain?”

Steve pauses, careful.  “Honestly?”  Tony nods, impatient.  “Trying to make sure you’re still here.  Kind of surprised we’re both still there.”

“White lies are still lies,” Tony replies.  

He takes in a breath before adding, “Because I really want to fuck you to make sure we’re both still here.”  It’s not the whole truth, but Tony’s not ready for that.  Not yet.

Tony’s mouth falls open.  “Oh,” he says.  “Well I wouldn’t say no to that.”

“No?” Steve responds.  Tony grins, wicked as he regains his footing.  “Leave in twenty minutes  and find me in the penthouse,” he mutters before standing up and leaving the couch.  

Steve ends up doing three shots from Natasha to ignore her knowing smirk before heading up.

  
  


It takes him two months to get help.

Peter is the one who finds him, passed out, puke besides him, and panics until FRIDAY explains what to do to make sure Tony doesn’t pass out in his own puke.  (Tony watches the footage later, and clenches his fists so tightly that his nails break the skin of his palm.)

It takes him two months, but the image he wakes up to of Peter hyperventilating and saying, “Mr. Stark, Tony, _please_ ” keeps him sober.

Later - Tony watches the Peter video more often than he would like to admit to.  It’s a reminder of his mistakes, he tells himself, FRIDAY, Rhodes.  He has to be aware to keep himself from slipping.

It’s a truth and a lie.  He’s gotten good at those.

  
  


The morning after, Steve traces the seam of the arm, high on Tony’s shoulder, and watches Tony’s face as he does so.  He doesn’t look away from the scars, doesn’t flinch, but he watches Steve more than he does the movement.  Like Tony’s waiting for the second it becomes too much for Steve.

It’s fair, but sometimes Steve wonders just when Tony will trust him again.  

“You shouldn’t have to wear a glove.”

Tony rolls his eyes.  “We’ve already had this conversation.  I do it for other people and to keep the questions at bay.”

“I think you’re hiding it from yourself,” Steve says carefully.  He watches as Tony minutely winces and knows he’s found something there.  “I think it scares you more than you want to admit, and I’m not sure if it’s because it makes you different, or if it’s because it’s not yours and you don’t know the limitations, but I know you’re not comfortable.”

Tony sighs.  “I should have known you would have noticed with your always planning Captain face, but yeah you’re right.”

“I know because I know you,” Steve retorts.

“You watch me,” Tony returns, a little angry.  He pauses and the next time he speaks, the tone is bland, careful.  They are still walking on eggshells - even here in Tony’s bed.  “You watch me like a creepy stalker I should probably get a restraining order from.”

Steve pulls himself closer until he is aligned with Tony, half covering him.  “I watch you because you fascinate me.  Because I want to understand how your mind works.  Because I can’t help but look at you.”

He kisses Tony then, long and trying to explain what he can’t find the words for.  That he wants to know what he missed, that he wants to not miss another second, that he wants everything to be familiar, but it still isn’t, even three years after the civil war.  And he wants the newness to fall away, and to feel this become something comfortable and stable.  

When he pulls back, Tony asks, “Are you being honest?”

“Always,” Steve replies.  This time, Tony kisses him.

  


 

The first time in over two years that Tony sees Steve in person is across a room, and for the first time in a while, he feels a limb that doesn’t exist. The screeching pain that came from the destroyed arm.  The shaking that left his whole body rattling by the end if he jarred himself just right.

Shuri reads it in his eyes, Peter in his stance, and he loathes himself for a moment for making these children carry his pain with them.  Making them grow up a second sooner because of his own problems.  It’s nothing new - nothing unfamiliar, but he counts his breaths before letting the thought go.  

Steve looks different than the silent one that followed him around for months, bearded, blonder - but just as silent.  Just as observant as the other one.

He escapes as quickly as he can.  

  
  


“So what was this?” Tony asks as they finally dress.  “Drunken mistake?”  Steve turns after he puts on the shirt.  

Tony is holding onto the edge of the long sleeve shirt, plucking at invisible lint with his flesh hand. Uncomfortable is written in every line of his body, and he carefully is avoiding Steve’s eyes.  

Steve comes up and captures both of Tony’s hands.  “I don’t do drunk, remember?” he jokes, trying for humor, but Tony still isn’t looking at him.  “Hey,” he says.  “You asked for honesty, right?”

Tony looks at him and nods, “Yeah.”  There is something there in his eyes, Steve can see, but he isn’t sure what it means.

“It’s an unconventional beginning.”  Steve utters.  “You almost died, and I can’t stand by and, how did you put it?  Be a creepy stalker after that.”

“Honestly?” Tony questions.  

“Yeah,” Steve replies.

“I still don’t believe you.”

Steve squeezes Tony’s hands, “It’s okay.  I’m willing to stick around and convince you.”

  
  


Steve doesn’t look at the arm in horror.  Doesn’t look at him like he’s mix of Frankenstein and the monster, which he feels like on the worst days.  On the best days, he’s one or the other.  

Tony wonders about that for a long time.  

Until he doesn’t.


End file.
